Improving Climate Change Education

TAMPA,
Fla. (Sept. 19, 2013) – Students from about 25 Hillsborough
County high schools will learn about the complex science behind global climate
change through a new program designed to make it more personally relevant and easier
to understand.

The Climate Change Narrative Game Education (CHANGE) project
will create a curriculum for high school marine sciences classes that uses
situations, settings, and scientific data specific to the West Central Florida region. The program will also include hands-on
activities and an eBook novel with accompanying computer games simulating the
long-term effects of climate change.

“To teenagers, the personal impact of climate change is
often lost in complexity and remote time scales. A web-based novel, with
computer games, talks to teenagers in their own media language,” said project
director Glenn Smith, an Associate Professor in the University of South Florida’s
Department of Secondary Education.

Smith is developing the project along with USF faculty
members Allan Feldman, Yiping Lou, and Ping Wang, as well as partners from
Hillsborough County Public Schools. It’s
funded by a $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

“We believe that the problems associated with climate
change are among the most important questions that we face. Therefore, it is
imperative that current high school students learn the science behind it. What
we have seen, however, is that the complexity of the topic makes it difficult
for students to get a good grasp of it,” said Feldman, a USF Professor of Science
Education.

By fall 2014, the curriculum will be taught in four
Hillsborough County high schools. The
following year, it will be expanded to more than two dozen high schools.

The project also aims to advance global climate change
education by reaching minority and low-income students, who are historically
underrepresented in STEM fields and less engaged in science and engineering
decision-making.

“Hillsborough County
Public Schools is excited to once again partner with the University of South
Florida on our second climate change education related project,” said Larry
Plank, the district’s director of K-12 STEM education, “The current project
will allow us to teach climate science to high school students utilizing
computer simulations - allowing us to meet students in a virtual environment
they feel comfortable navigating within. The project will be of great
importance at our newest STEM magnet school, Jefferson High, where students are
studying marine science and sustainability with support from USF and the
Florida Aquarium.”

While the program will be implemented in Hillsborough
County, the developers hope it can serve as a model for additional schools throughout
the state of Florida to adopt.